Solid catalysts having a propensity to accelerate hydrorefining and hydrocracking reactions are widely used today in many industries within the petroleum and chemical arts to accelerate a wide spectrum of hydrocarbon conversion reactions. In many applications these solid catalysts are used by themselves to accelerate reactions such as catalytic cracking, alkylation, dealkylation, polymerization, etc. In other applications these catalysts are combined with a hydrogenation-dehydrogenation metallic component to form a dual-function catalyst having both a hydrocracking function and a hydrogenation-dehydrogenation function. In this latter case, the cracking function is generally thought to be associated with a material of the porous, adsorptive, refractory oxide-type which is typically utilized as the support or carrier for a heavy metal component such as the metals or compounds of metals of Group VI or Group VIII of the Periodic Table to which the hydrogenation-dehydrogenation function is generally attributed.
Heretofore the hydrocracking function has been typically provided by a wide variety of material such as zeolites, i.e., crystalline aluminosilicates, alumina, silica-alumina, silica-magnesia, silica gels, phosphates, various types of amorphous clays, acid-treated alumina, and halogen-containing alumina.